The Sanguine Mist

They say you give up a few things, chasing a dream. In those mists that's the literal truth, for every dream of yours that comes true, a piece of yourself, mind, body, or soul, gets taken by the mist. Worst part is, you won't even know what the cost of your dreams are until you go to leave, and by then you might not even have a mind left to change...

A fragment of the mists of creation, drawn to those desperate to make their dreams come true. Suitable for any magical fantasy setting.

Description:

A thick blood red fog that seems to pulse in time with your beating heart swirls before you, seeming to have arisen from the floorboards beneath your bed. Thin rope like tendrils trail around its edges, swirling in faint shapes and images that vanish the moment you try to fix your eyes upon them.

The mist itself seems heavy with dark droplets of liquid that bead gently on your blankets and the nightstand. Beside you small crimson rivulets trickle down the wall where its tendrils brush.

However rather then fear, you feel a strange sense of alluring mystery radiating from the cloud; like the wonder of wrapped presents on winter festival morning. Within this miasma could be the answer to your dreams. As your mind recalls some of your wildest hopes and most desperate desires the sanguine vapor flows over you, its embrace not at all sticky as you expected, but warm and comforting, like the arms of the lover you've dreamed of since you were a teenage child, yet never expected to find...

History:

The mist itself is a left over fragment of the mists of creation, the very essence the gods used to create the heavens and earth at a dawn of time. Misplaced and long since forgotten by the deities themselves, the mist drifts aimlessly in between the waking and sleeping worlds, inexorably drawn towards those mortals whose dreams all but consume their waking thoughts, and long ceaselessly for that which they can never possess by normal means.

Among mortals this sacred mist is rumored to appear as a divine reward to those who never give up chasing their hearts desire, and adventurers who are willing to make their dreams a reality even at great personal sacrifice.

Some retired adventures, their dreams still unfulfilled join monasteries or withdraw to become reclusive hermits, meditating with every moment of spare time upon their dreams and desires, hoping to be rewarded by this mysterious gift. Others, particularly abusers of hallucinogenic drugs and elderly dreaming of youth, may draw the mist to themselves during a particularly vivid dream of their hearts true desire and awaken to find it filling their room ready to make their every fantasy come true.

Granted they may have heard wild stories of the price of such dreams, but for the lonely woman in search of true love, or the dying elderly king, such a price may seem cheap in comparison to the alternative.

Magical Properties:

The mist itself is not so much a fully sentient entity, as a vaguely self aware magical tool. Created to make ones thoughts reality, the Sanguine Mist seeks to make the dreams of longing mortals come true; no matter how bizarre or implausible.

Being quite literally the energies of pure creation, reality runs like warm wax within the mist, letting anything take form and solidify into existence or life as the occupant desires.

If the hapless dreamer desires riches beyond belief, then they will find themselves surrounded by a kings ransom in gold and jewelry. Those seeking love can find the object of their desire brought to life before them ready and eager to please.

For those who wish the power of a emperor or vast stretches of land, they may find themselves in possession of a suitable item of jewelry, scroll of inheritance/deed, or other proof of their new found lineage to a already existing nobility or estate. Even magical powers or changes to ones physical form can be gained while within the mists, although the alteration to ones body may well prove painful enough to drive them irrevocably insane.

The gods who used such mist for the creation of life as it is known, were easily able to pay the cost for raw creation with but a small expense of willpower and energy. Unfortunately for mere mortals, such creation comes at a steeper price taken from the dreamers own flesh, sense of self, and in the cases of fantasy lovers made real or resurrected children, a piece of their very soul.

Depending on what one desires the mist will extract a similar price upon the wisher. Physical rewards such as piles gold and weapons can cost a user their legs, or perhaps fingers and toes.

Arcane knowledge or combat prowess comes at the price of other memories, from those of early childhood to their very sense of self identity.

Physical changes, from youth to a more beautiful body often come at the expense of the mind, with the body of a goddess also granting one the intelligence of a fence post, and a second chance at youth brining with it a loss of worldly knowledge and experience.

For living creations a fragment of the persons very life essence is torn from them to breath life into the new being. A man wishing for the girl of his dreams to be at his side may find himself twenty years older, or perhaps due to part of his soul as the building block of this new life, he may find he shares every physical and/or emotional discomfort his new love does, their lives quite literally one.

The resurrection of a real person lost to the embrace of death, or destruction of an already living foe carries with it the highest cost of all, a life for a life, no other exchange sufficient to oppose the will of the reaper.

Of all the dreams mortals have, dreaming of a far off land is perhaps the cheapest, usually costing only a few months of life for the instant travel to such a location. However unless the dreamer was carrying the requisite supplies and means to survive, they could well find themselves in a far off hostile land with little more then the clothes on their backs.

Perhaps most insidious of all, while within the mist such dreams appear to be granted free of cost, seeming to simply appear to the user as if by the will of the gods, the mist itself even creating the illusion of a palace or romantic riverside view to accommodate the users idyllic dreams.

Theoretically one could exist within the mist for an eternity without cost, as long as they have no dreams or desires that apply to the real world. Unfortunately for mortals they inevitably wish to spend their newly acquired wealth, and introduce their newly found love to friends and family. It is when the users dreams involve the real world that the mist finds itself compelled to solidify their desires as reality before fading, and use the dreamer in part for the necessary construction material to achieve such ends...

Plot Hooks:

Sweet Dreams are made of these:

Dreams, everyone has dreams, from the wet behind the ears adventurer, to the retired bar keep down the road. Recently the local herbologist has begun secretly selling a new drug called "sweet dreams" a powerful sleeping compound that he promises will make a users dreams come true in as little as a months worth of regular use. (In reality the potion enhances a users dreams to the the point of lucidity, making them a virtual magnet to the Sanguine Mist, as well as being highly addictive in its own right.) When local addicts begin turning up horribly disfigured, in possession of vast riches and strangely loyal companions word of a dark curse abounds.

Suffering from a recent bizarre influx of crippled people bearing irrefutable proof of inheritance to part of the royal kingdom and estate, the king offers up a tidy reward to whomever can put a stop to the madness before things get even further out of hand.

Bottled Dreams:

Magnar The Quick was always considered a sneaky genius, even among his fellow alchemists. It came as no surprise to his colleagues when he found a way to bottle the legendary Sanguine Mist and market it to unwitting buyers as a bottle of "cursed dreams." Using this bottled mist a user could splash it across another living person while envisioning a single dream of their own, and the dream would quickly come true, at the horribly painful expense of the poor victim covered in mist.

Now these bottles of dreams are turning up in the hands of foul tyrants and well meaning adventurers causing no end of moral dilemmas. (After all why shouldn't a murderer die to bring his victim back to life? Or a mere peasant suffer complete amnesia to restore the beloved old emperor to youth?)

Worse still, the mist itself seeks to reclaim its missing fragments, and begins hunting those in possession of the bottles, as well as those who benefited from their use in a desperate attempt to become whole once more.

Sudden Wealth:

A relative of one of the characters recently seems to have become heir to a small dukedom and a skilled mage to boot, but also somehow lost his right arm below the elbow and forgotten the rest of his family ever existed. Discovering the cause and possible cure behind their beloved uncles strange malady and sudden power could prove challenging, although his sleeping mutters of a red mist might just hold the needed clue.

Broken Dreams:

Having seen the horrific effects this Sanguine Mist has had on people over the years the temple of order have taken it upon themselves to track down and destroy this chaotic force one and for all, sparing no expense in the hiring of adventures to assist them.

Such a journey could involve traveling to ancient holy ruins top learn of the mists initial creation and perhaps even to the plane of dream itself to destroy the mist in the one place where it may possibly be vulnerable.

Dreams Come True:

The Sanguine Mist appears to multiple members of the group one chilly night in a run down inn. Even with having heard of the alleged costs for gifts the question still remains, is a chance at a dream come true worth the price? Perhaps more important is the alluring question that stirs in the back of their minds, "Is it possible to make someone else currently in the mist pay the price for my dreams?"

Additional Ideas (0)

Gain the ability to:Vote and add your ideas to submissions.
Upvote and give XP to useful comments.
Work on submissions in private or flag them for assistance.
Earn XP and gain levels that give you more site abilities.
Join a Guild in the forums or complete a Quest and level-up your experience.

Though, the mechanism of wish-granting could be subtler in some instances - at time it reads like a marketplace ("What does a leg get me?"); also, I can envision it sticking longer to one wishing person who has a great dream, helping him but consuming him in the end.

Very clear guide on what price is paid for each type of dream. I like Echo's idea of the mist helping an individual with a huge dream -- perhaps destruction of a whole race/kingdom, or something similarly epic. It could follow him around, sticking to his flesh as parts of the plan fall together in stages, the man losing more and more of his sanity as time goes on. With the mist billowing out behind him, he'd probably be heralded as a mad prophet/sage/wizard and gain a following.

I really like the idea you and Echo have of a mans dreams tying the fog to him as he tries in vain to destroy a kingdom, threatening the entire continent on his mad rampage. It could work well as the focal point of an entire campaign if done right.

Excellent. Definitely something to make the campaign world more interesting and deadly. I can easily believe that many people would be more than willing to make such sacrifices for that one thing they just can't do without.

I see the mark of a good submission as me immediately wanting to think of ways to use it. I see the mark of a great submission handing me the tools to do it effortlessly. Truly an exceptional idea, and well thought out.

It's unlikely someone with half the powers of a god would even need the mist. (Unless you mean someone like Hercules, in which case it would likely depend on what he was attempting to gain, and even then the cost would likely be taken from his human half because the god part would be pretty much untouchable I would assume.)

Freetext

Hooper McFin's Two Shot Portal

Now, this ol' ramblin fellow tends to walk his talk a bit too far down the train sometimes.. So I'll be brief in my recantin' of how it was my Tavern "came to bein'" on the multiverse as a weave of it's own spell.. And how I'm even alive to tell the story!

You see it's simple really, trust me.. that's my specialty, keepin it elementary. And you can trust this old Bard.

Anyway, this one night these wizards get a ramblin' on about the temporal exististance of space and time and how it could be manifested in a weave of super dimensional space. whereupon the folded space would give rise to an infinite number of entrances and exits to one or many spaces. Now, seein' how my talkin' sometimes get's locked into the way us folks used to talk back in the ol' west. These wizards didn't know I was a master of the word. and I had heard everything they said. They were also a bit over the wagon, while I was steerin' the show.

So that's how it came to pass, I struck a bargain with the wizards. They come to me in the morning and conjure up their idea into reality and I'd pledge them my life, my existance.. in essence my soul. but in a much nicer sense of the word. So they came by in the morning a half remembering our talks the prior evenin'. And I recanted their words verbatum, and that's how it came to be. The spell was complete that afternoon. My tavern would be the super dimensional cube that would exist in this weave of space and time, folks could come and go as they please, knowin in mind some of the rules and limitations set forth.

A few of 'em as follows.

No feller can be causin a ruckus inside any of my fine establishments, as always rule number one god damnit.

n' second the portal works kinda tricky. When ya outside ya cast the spell and lend your will to luck a bit and regardless the doors to the bar will appear, the windows a luminescent amber.. you can hear the chattee but ya can't see in. And the catch is the door might be locked, in which case you chalk it up to lady luck and go walk off and try again in an hour. Now most times the door pops right open and from the outside you always come in the front door, immediately greeted by myself or one of our many fine patrons of Hooper McFin's Ale & Steakhouse.

Now when ya cast the spell from inside the Tavern, another catch comes up. The back door is mainly a secret for the non-initiated staff and the regulars but for sake of the prose let's assume we all know there's a secret door in the back with a portal there. Now when you go on through this one, you got two scenario's you oughta be aware of. One is ya pop outside relative to the same spot you came out. The other is, you walk back on into this one or another of our many Hooper McFin's Ale & Steakhouse.

** And that's it.. that's the only notes I found on the spell, apparently out there somewhere is a Tavern caught on the mighty ebb and flow of the multiverse. Well. at least I can put to rest my torment as to the condition now referred to as "Hooper McFin's Teleportation Paranoia".